Master of Design Futures
I joined the second cohort of students who completed RMIT’s Master of Design Futures (MDF) program. The syllabus included emergent design theory and practice, including strategic design, service design and design research, and my capstone project explored ‘The effectiveness of sensory walking research within a service design context’. It applied a sensory ethnographic method developed by Sarah Pink (2007) to a service design project situated at Montsalvat Arts Centre. The project produced an audit of the visitor experience and recommended 22 opportunities for improvement. The research also concluded that Sensory walking research (Pink 2007) was a valuable action-based research method for service designers because it offers heightened insight into a participant’s experiences and improves the communication of findings to stakeholders.
Key findings were integrated into the Art Centre’s five-plan by the CEO, and I extended the research by joining RMIT’s PhD program. I graduated from the Master of Design Futures in the top 2% of students and made the Vice-Chancellors list for Academic Excellence with a grade point average (GPA) of 4.0. The following images include me conducting sensory walking research and the customer experience map developed to communicate research findings.